[How About This Book] Even the Couple Lee O-ryeong and Kang In-suk Suffered from 'Jeonse Fraud'

Autobiographical Essay by Teacher Kang Insuk
From Newlywed Life in a One-Room Apartment
to Building the 'Yeongin Literature Museum' with Her Husband
Depicting the Years with the Intellectuals of the Era Through Eight Moves

[Asia Economy Reporter Seomideum] The author of the book, Kang Insuk, is a literary critic and Korean literature scholar. Born in 1933 in Gapsan, Hamgyeongbuk-do, she lived in Iwon-gun before moving south in November 1945. She graduated from Gyeonggi Girls' Middle and High School, then from the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Seoul National University College of Liberal Arts, and earned her master's and doctoral degrees at Sookmyung Women's University. At Seoul National University, she met her husband, the late Dr. Lee Eoryeong, a classmate and peer, and married him in 1958. She worked as a professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Konkuk University and, after retirement, established and operated the Yeongin Literature Museum.

The author took up the pen with the thought of writing an autobiographical essay to organize the years she had lived. She carefully described the journey of expanding the home (the couple’s study) with her husband, Lee Eoryeong, after marriage. Starting from their newlywed life in a one-room apartment, to a mansion with rooms for their three children and a study for the couple, and then downsizing the house to build the Yeongin Literature Museum after their children became independent, she filled every gap with memories from those times. Although her husband has passed away, she describes the Yeongin Literature Museum they built together as "a ‘house built with writing’ by Lee Eoryeong alone," explaining it as "a tangible form of his manuscript sheets."

The narrative centers around their homes. It begins with the small one-room apartment they prepared after marrying following five years of dating. It was a house arranged hastily after her mother said, "Since you’ve dated for five years, if you’re not going to marry, it’s better to end it now." Neither family was in a position to provide marriage funds, so they chose the best option by adding up congratulatory money from relatives and acquaintances.

However, even Lee Eoryeong, revered as an intellectual of the era, had to endure a harsh initiation in society. It turned out that the people who rented the one-room apartment on a lease were not the landlords but had rented the entire house and subleased it to them. It was a ‘planned fraud,’ but they had no way to respond, and after three months of back and forth, they barely escaped. The author confesses, "From that house, we learned distrust of people. We paid a high tuition fee."

The second home was a two-room north-facing house. It was so cold that the water in the fish tank froze overnight, and there was no room for leisure in life. They had no living expenses and survived on bean sprout soup, and on top of that, she had to bear the living expenses of her in-laws. At a time when social welfare was virtually nonexistent, she had to shoulder the burden of so-called ‘family welfare.’ The author does not view this extended family system negatively. Regarding the situation where siblings were allowed a higher inheritance share in exchange for caring for others, she says, "If it’s divided, everyone becomes poor, so concentrating wealth in one person and entrusting family welfare to them had a rational aspect."

She also infers that such circumstances were a reason why the culture of donation did not develop domestically. The heavy burden of family support directed care inward to the clan, which she also pointed to as a reason why the heads of households at the time were easily tempted by corruption. These difficult circumstances improved in 1966 when her husband became a professor at Ewha Womans University and concurrently a columnist for the Chosun Ilbo. The author says, "Fortunately, unlike officials of the Joseon Dynasty, he didn’t have to commit corruption to take care of his family." Around this time, Lee Eoryeong rose to the ranks of bestselling authors and gradually moved away from poverty.

After moving through Cheongpa-dong 1-ga, they rented a room in Cheongpa-dong 3-ga, where just a month after moving in, they encountered the April 19 Revolution. She describes it as "the only political movement I wanted to participate in" and "the purest and most beautiful resistance I have ever seen." However, she shows a favorable attitude toward President Syngman Rhee. The author claims that his close aides did not properly inform the president of the situation and says, "The president, upon understanding the situation, got angry and ordered the shooting to stop, saying, ‘Who is shooting at our students?’" She adds, "What was most precious to him was not the regime but the young students who would carry the country forward."

In their first ‘own home’ in Hangangno 2-ga in 1961, they experienced the May 16 coup. The author recalls the atmosphere as more terrifying than during April 19, which was connected to her husband’s circumstances. At the time, her husband, a columnist for the Hankook Ilbo, wrote a daily column called ‘Horizon’ during martial law, but it was not free from censorship. Parts of his columns were frequently deleted, and one day the entire column was removed and replaced with advertisements. Her husband received a message that ‘General Park from the revolutionary government, who appeared daily armed in the president’s office, threatened to hand him over and told him not to come to the newspaper office for a while.’ Fortunately, the newspaper kept the author’s identity secret until the end, and they got through safely, but the author still remembers the terrifying moment.

While describing the process of securing eight residences, the author cites the happiest moment as when she made a study for her husband in their Pyeongchang-dong mansion in 1974. She says, "The happiest time in my life was when I made the study he wanted. Mr. Lee Eoryeong was a husband who wanted to give me all the good things."

A House Built with Writing | Written by Kang Insuk | Yeollimwon | 392 pages | 19,000 KRW